


A Mother's Love

by nishiki



Series: Thistle and Weeds [14]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Secrets, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 22:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19029223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishiki/pseuds/nishiki
Summary: The Hargreeves siblings find out about their birth mothers.----------Can be read as stand-alone





	A Mother's Love

**Author's Note:**

> I largely took the birthplaces of their actors as the birthplaces for the kids. I only changed it for Five and Klaus. In the comics, Luther and Five are actually twins (as far as I know) and I thought about doing this in this series of fics too but decided against it, in the end.

**December 2020**

 

Finding the rest of their father’s notes about his seven adopted children was like finding the holy grail. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time and Diego Hargreeves didn't know if he was quite ready to dive into the file his father had so meticulously labeled 00.02. He had not even added his given name to it at some point. The digits were laughing in his face as Diego was taking a seat beside Klaus on the sofa. The rest of his siblings had gathered all around them in the living room. Not one of them did not hold a file in their hands. All of them seemed just as hesitant to open them as he was. Even Ben, who was seated on the armrest next to Klaus, seemed unsure if he even wanted to have a peek.

They had turned the entire house on its head, cleaning everything up and rearranging stuff to their liking now that the house was their own and the old man dead and gone for good. That was when they had discovered that dusty old chest in their father's bedroom which had held all those files. At first, Luther had been completely against touching their father’s stuff. He was slowly getting to the point where he started to lower Reginald from the pedestal he had always put him on. He was slowly understanding how wrong he had been to follow this maniac for such a long time and honor the ground Reginald had been walking on. Luther had a long way to go yet, though.

Funnily enough, Klaus had felt the need to bring his old favorite toy down with him to read his own file. Diego had almost forgotten about Nellie the sheep. Now as an adult he would not make the mistake again to call Nellie a girl, of course. Nellie, as far as a two-year-old Klaus Hargreeves had been concerned, had been a very manly name for his big plush sheep.

»So … What now?« Luther asked carefully. »I mean … do we read them out loud or … What?«

Diego didn't want to read his file out loud. Not without knowing what was in it.

»Do you think« Ben suddenly started. »that there is something about our mothers in those files? I mean … if anyone knows about them … it's Dad, right?«

Everyone looked at Ben now as if the thought had only now crossed everyone's mind. Diego felt a pit opening in his stomach at the thought. His mother. His _birth_ mother. Of course, he had thought about her before. Often. How could he not? There was some woman out there in the world, who had given birth to him - suddenly and without knowing what was coming her way. Reginald had told them about that early on in their lives as his experiments.

He had early on told them about that day they were born and about the 43 women who had suddenly and unexpectedly given birth without having been pregnant on that same morning. They were the miracle babies. Seven of them, at least.

Reginald had never talked about their mothers though.

They didn't know their names, didn't know the circumstances of their births, didn't even quite know from where they originated. They had guesses, of course, because of the names they had been given. None of them had, in thirty years, ever dared to ask about their mothers.

The thought of possibly finding out everything _now,_ after everything that had happened, frightened him. It really did. He couldn't even quite say why the possibility of finding out more about where he came from was bothering him so much. It wasn't as if he had any ties to the woman who had given birth to him. She wasn't really his mother anyway, right? She had not carried him under her heart for nine months. She had been an instrument for whatever happened on that day. Chosen by whatever higher power or entity had decided over what happened that day.

Luther was actually - and to no one’s surprise - the first to open his file. His big ape hands always had problems dealing with paper. Regardless, he managed to open the file and have a look inside. The rest of his siblings watched how he scanned the page hurriedly. »I’m from Leicestershire in England.« He noted dumbly. As he looked up at the rest of his siblings, he seemed completely dumbfounded by that newly gained information as if the possibility had never crossed his mind before. »I’m a Brit?«

»Norfolk, Virginia.« Allison suddenly chimed in with a soft smile. Diego had not even noticed how she opened her file. She had put her hand over the rest of the page as if she wanted to reveal everything slowly to herself. He noted that Luther was doing the same thing.

»Jinju, South Korea.« Ben smirked. He too was hiding half the page from himself.

»Kazan, Russia.« Vanya spoke up with a surprised little smile tugging on her lips. »Look at that … I’m Russian.«

»Buxtehude.« Klaus muttered. »Where the fuck- Germany. _Na klar!_ «

Five let out a small scoff at that and rolled his eyes. He might act as if he didn't care about all of that but he couldn't fool the rest of them. Deep down inside this grouchy old man was still the same thirteen-year-old boy that had terrorized them a long time ago. That boy who had refused to name his stuffed penguin. As he opened his file, he did so with a frown that only deepened when he started reading.

»Paris, France.« He then told no one in particular and Klaus gave a little snort. The glare Five shot his brother managed to silence Klaus right away though.

Diego, however, grew very aware of six pairs of eyes directed straight at him now. He tried to play his nervousness down as he gave a small sigh and opened his file. Quickly, he put his hand over the rest of the information. His heart, however, was beating so loudly that he was sure his siblings would hear it.

»Sinaloa, Mexico.« Diego read finally. The first step was taken but his heart was beating only faster and faster because he knew that now everyone would see what was written about their mothers.

Suddenly, everyone seemed extra nervous. Good thing they had Luther, their brave leader. Luther took a deep breath and took his hand from his page to read in silence first. His expression was conflicted, to say the least as he reached the end of the page.

»Luther?« Allison urged gently and put her hand on his shoulder in silent comfort.

»So« Luther cleared his throat and glanced shortly at Allison and then at the rest of his siblings before returning his eyes to the page. »My mother’s name is unknown. When Reginald found me, she had already dropped me off at some hospital anonymously. There is no data known about her. The hospital gave me over to Reginald for a generous donation to their children’s medical unit.«

That, Diego thought, was probably the best case scenario for all of them. They had come into this world suddenly and violently and without their mothers having any inkling of what was about to happen to them on that fateful day. It was probably best if they would never know who those unfortunate women were.

What if, Diego wondered, he would learn his mother’s name and wanted to find her? And what if he would find her? What would he say to her? _Hey, I’m that baby you pressed out without even knowing what was going on one day? Hey, I’m that baby whose birth probably traumatized you for the rest of your life?_ Maybe it was best if they would never know their origins.

Allison gently caressed Luther’s cheek at that. He seemed honestly disappointed by this revelation. Allison was next in line again. »Hm.« She hummed. »No name given but from a wealthy family. Apparently, good old Reggie gave her quite a bit for me.« She sounded just as disappointed as Luther. Diego, on the other hand, thought that they were lucky. It was probably for the best this way.

»Same.« Ben sighed and closed his file again. »Just not wealthy.« He added with a chuckle. »Simple girl from a simple family. The family was glad that Reggie wanted me. They tried to sweep my existence under the rug, pretty much. You know, to keep her honor intact and all that. They accepted his offer right away. Reggie noted that … she committed suicide after her fiance found out about it and broke off the engagement.«

He didn't seem sad as Diego looked at him. He sounded detached and numb to those facts. Perhaps he was. Perhaps that just came with being dead. Perhaps he just didn't care all that much. Just like Five, Ben had always sought out the most logical approach to a problem and tried to look at problems as neutral as possible. What was going on deep down inside of him was still an enigma, though.

»I guess it's my turn.« Vanya mumbled shyly before lifting her hand from the page. She gave one last questioning look as she was searching for approval before she focused her eyes on the page. »Okay, so … Oh.«

Well, that didn't sound promising. Her expression darkened a little. »My mother … Well, apparently she was attending some sort of swim class in her local community pool when all of this went down. She got me right there at the side of the pool. She was not even eighteen years old yet. There’s a name but he has erased it after the fact. When he came to fetch me, she was with her family still but ... Well, apparently, after he paid the family a hefty sum for me, my mother was sent to a mental hospital. The trauma was too much. Either that or the family wanted to get rid of her.«

It was almost impossible to tell how she felt about it. Reading about their mothers was like reading about complete strangers. In fact, Diego wondered if they even shared DNA with those women. What did they mean to them? Should they care about them? Were they thinking about their children thirty years later? Could they even be considered their children? It was all so confusing and weird and certainly not the first time that Diego had thought about it. He was sure his siblings had wondered these things as well.

Five decided it was his turn instead of the previously established order in which Klaus would have been next. »Yep, hospital, just like Luther. No name, no information given. A young woman in her late twenties, that's all.«

Klaus seemed even more nervous than Diego felt as he glanced shortly at his brother. It was almost as if he already knew what was coming and didn't want to have it in black and white. Still, he took his hand from the page and read in silence. They waited for him to actually say something or tell them what it was that Reggie had put down. Instead, Klaus just stared blankly at the page for a few seconds before he lifted his eyes to look around the room. For a brief moment, he stopped at Diego but he couldn't quite discern the look in those green eyes before Klaus just shut his file completely and threw it on the seat next to him.

»Nothing.« He said as he suddenly rose from his seat. His voice was tight and strange, his mouth a  thin line and before anyone could stop him, he had already fled the room.

Bewilderment lay heavily over the living room as they listened to Klaus’ retreating footsteps echoing quietly in the hall. It was Allison, who then broke the spell and reached over from where she was seated on the armchair next to the sofa to grab Klaus’ file.

»Hey!« Diego immediately shot out. »Not cool, Allison. If he-«

But Allison had already opened the file and started reading. »A young girl, sixteen. Clara Zimmermann.« She began. »Oh. Oh, no.« And Diego knew what was coming even before Five wrenched the file from her hands to get it over with. Apparently, the rest of his siblings had decided that they somehow were entitled to this information.

»Clara Zimmermann, sixteen years old, died giving birth on October 1st, 1989. No previous signs of pregnancy. Her parents found her dead in a pool of her own blood on the kitchen floor. The parents were out on the local market when it happened and returned home to their remote farmhouse a little out of town around noon that day. The baby, Number Four, had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and was first considered to be dead as well. He could be saved by the arriving ambulance. The parents of the girl, Thomas and Maria Zimmermann, immediately gave the baby up when Dad showed up and offered them money to avoid further scandal.«

Diego felt like someone was walking over his grave as Five ended this little report and closed the file again. It was odd, really. He shouldn't feel so bothered by this report. Klaus had no connection to this woman and neither did Diego and yet it had affected his brother deeply to read this. Was it the thought that he had killed his mother? Was it the thought that he had been in touch with the world of the dead from the first seconds of his life? They should have expected something like this, actually. They all had been born so suddenly … The chances that some of those women had died giving birth had been enormous. Yet, it was Klaus’ mother who had died. Klaus who was always in contact with the spirit world.

He wanted to go after him and see if he was okay.

»Diego?« Vanya's voice pulled him from his thoughts and reminded him that only he was left now. He looked at her almost a bit spooked. »You don't have to if you…«

Bullshit. Five had just proven that, if he wouldn't read his file, his siblings would regardless.

»No.« Diego cleared his throat. »No, it's okay.«

 _Get it over with, Diego. Don't be a baby,_ he scolded himself. So, he lifted his hand from the bottom half of the first page of his file and started reading. It wasn't as bad as what Klaus had had to read but it left a sour taste in his mouth nonetheless. It left him angry at the world, sad even.

»Maria Sanchez.« He muttered calmly. »Mother of three at the time. Gave birth while hanging up the laundry outside. Her husband was a trucker and when he arrived back home and heard what had happened, he thought she had cheated on him. He left her and took the three kids with him. When Reggie came to them … Well, she sold me for a few Pesos. Not even enough to pay rent. She just wanted to get rid of me as it seems.« He tried to sound nonchalant and unbothered but he couldn't quite help the anger seeping through.

Well, they had all been sold, right? Why was he so much more angry about it then the rest of them? He couldn't help it. Just the thought that his birth mother had sold him for two hundred pesos was … it was hard. It was like a punch in the guts. She had been a _mother_ , after all.

Yes, she had not really been pregnant with him for nine months but she had given birth to him, went through the trauma and pain of labor. She was a mother. Shouldn't she have … loved him? At least a tiny bit? In theory, he even had blood-related siblings somewhere in Mexico. But what was this worth, in the end? She had probably told them that he died. If those children had even known about him at some point. She had sold him to get back to her family and he couldn't blame her for that but it … hurt.

As Diego closed his file at that, his eyes fell upon Nellie the sheep on the sofa next to him. Klaus had forgotten him when he rushed out. »Well, that was fun.« He muttered and rose from his seat. Grabbing the stuffed animal came completely by instinct as he remembered how many times he had returned Nellie to Klaus in their childhood. In fact, he vividly remembered sitting on the floor with Klaus in front of the washing machine whenever his blanket and Nellie had needed a good wash.

He didn't really want to go and comfort Klaus. Not when he was dealing with his own troubled mind but he couldn't just leave Klaus to deal with this new information on his own, right? Klaus was … too soft, sometimes. Then again, was it really his problem how Klaus would deal with this?

Well, he made it his problem. Because that was just what he did. As Patch liked to say, he was horribly annoying sometimes. So, he would go and be annoying to his brother because that was what siblings did, right? Ben and Klaus had always been close, yes, and they had been attached at the hip since Ben’s death. Diego, on the other hand, was the one who would take care of Klaus. That was just a fact of life. He was not his Jiminy Cricket. He was the one who would beat up everyone who hurt his little brother.

Klaus wasn’t in his room and he had not expected him to be there either. In fact, Diego had no idea why he walked upstairs. He told himself that he wanted to return Nellie to Klaus’ bed. For a moment, Diego stood in his room and looked at the writing all over Klaus’ bedroom walls. The manifesto of a crazed lunatic. He remembered how Klaus first started writing all over his walls. It had begun shortly after Five had vanished. Back then, he had blamed the drugs his brother had started to use to dull himself to the ghosts. Now, he was not so sure anymore if these writings were in any way connected to the drugs.

Diego went over to his bed and wanted to sit Nellie down on the pillow to wait for Klaus before he stopped. He remembered a time when Klaus had hidden himself away from all of them in the basement. He himself had never gone down there. He had hated the basement as a kid. Too many spiders.

Still, too many spiders.

The fact that Diego Hargreeves, the Kraken, was afraid of spiders, had always been cause for great amusement in this family. And yet, now Diego was slowly fighting his own disgust as he was moving down the wooden stairs into the basement beneath the kitchen. He still didn't like the basement and usually, he didn't have a good enough reason to come down here anyway. Now, however, he slowly walked further into the dimly lit area underneath the house. He knew where Klaus’ little hideout was. He remembered Ben telling him about it. Apparently, Ben had once or twice visited his brother down there - or rather had been invited to join him for a secret tea party. That was just Klaus, right?

However, Klaus hiding out down here … that was a lifetime ago. And still, between the wooden shelves that were filled with canned soups and pickles, tucked away in some darker corner, he found his brother, sitting on a nest of dusty old blankets and even dustier pillows. He looked so small how he sat there. He looked a little lost. He looked like the child he once was. Before the ghosts. Before the drugs.

»When we were little, I envied you a bit for this hiding spot, you know?« Diego muttered as he carefully walked closer. Klaus tried his best to hide his tears but he couldn't quite hide the small sniffle as he wiped his tears away. He sat with his legs drawn up to his chest and his arms curled around them, his back pressed into the shelf behind him. »I mean … Not that I envy you for all the dust and the … you know.«

»Spiders.« Klaus sniffed.

»Yes, those.« Diego scoffed. »But still, I envied you for this place you had.«

»I think I’ve seen her.«

»Who?« Diego enquired calmly as he bridged the last bit of distance between them to sit down on Klaus’ little nest carefully. Usually, he would wait for an invitation to sit down but he doubted that Klaus was in the mood to be polite. »Oh … you forgot Nellie.« He tried with a small smile as he gave the fluffy sheep to his brother. Klaus immediately pulled it close to his chest.

»My mother.« He mumbled into the plush. »I think I saw her when I was little. Here. Down here.«

»Oh.« What was he supposed to do with this information? Wasn’t comforting Klaus in a situation like this Ben’s job? What was he supposed to do now? In his defense, comforting a heartbroken sibling had never been part of his training. Neither here nor in the police academy. He was helpless. He needed to call some kind of hotline for this kind of stuff. The worst about this was, perhaps, that his brother already knew that the rest of their siblings and Diego knew what happened to his mother. He didn't seem too bothered by this idea, though. Not more than the actual information was bothering him.

»My mother sold me for two hundred pesos.« Diego quietly told Klaus then. It was not a competition, of course, but he wanted his brother to know. That, at least caused his brother to look at him and Diego wished at the same time that he wouldn't do so. Klaus’ eyes were wet and full with unshed tears and he hated seeing him like this. He absolutely hated it.

»She was a mother of three.« Diego continued then calmly. »She was a mother and yet she sold her baby just like this as if it wouldn't mean anything. I don't know why but I would have expected a mother to act differently, right? Those other women … They were young and didn't know what being a mother meant but she … She knew and yet she sold me. It's dumb. I shouldn't be so overwhelmed because of it but-«

»Sad.« Klaus muttered. »You are sad, Diego, not overwhelmed. That's what you feel and it's okay to feel sad. It's sad. It's all so very sad. I’m sad.«

»Sad.« Diego echoed and leaned his head against the brick wall behind him. He turned the word over in his head, tasted it on his tongue. »Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m sad.«

They fell into silence for a moment and only when Klaus moved to lean on him, Diego let out a deep breath and put his arm around his brother. He was sad. He really was sad. And still, despite what his brother said, he felt stupid for being so sad about it. Klaus melted against his side and kept Nellie close while they just sat there and hung after their own thoughts.

Only when he heard heels clicking on the stairs to the basement, Diego perked up again. And there she was, the only motherly figure in his life that he really needed to be concerned about. Grace’s smile lit up the whole basement as she saw her two boys sitting in the corner. Only then it registered in Diego’s brain that his mother had kept Klaus’ little nest untouched down here for at least twenty years. She had never changed anything about it, never tidied up down here, just kept it this way in case Klaus would ever need this place again.

»Oh.« Grace smiled as she walked over to them. Her pink circle skirt swayed from side to side as she did and her heels clicked on the cement floor sharply. »Whatever are you boys doing down here?« Her smile dropped a little as she was close enough to see the tears on Klaus’ face. »Oh, what happened? Are you a little sad, Klaus? Did you fight with your siblings again?«

Klaus shook his head quietly as Mom carefully sat down on the bit of free space that was still left on the nest. »No, Mom … No, I’m just sad.« He muttered quietly but his voice was still hoarse and tight. Grace, nonetheless, reached over and brushed a few stray tears from his brother’s cheek with a soft smile. Her touch lingered just a moment longer than it needed to before she looked at Diego next. Sometimes he wondered what was happening behind those eyes and if she was capable of reading their emotions just by looking at them.

»You are a little sad too, Darling, aren't you?«

He nodded and didn't even quite mean to. He had never lied to his mother and he wouldn't start now. She was his mom, after all. The only mother that mattered. A robot and yet more loving than any human Diego had ever met in his life. His mother, Grace, would have never sold him, would have never tried to get rid of him. As she extended her hand to him to brush her fingers through his hair, he leaned into the touch like he had as a child. Grace gave a small hum then before she finally rose again.

»I will make your favorite dish, little Bumblebee.« She announced swiftly as she rose. »To cheer you up.«

»Thank you.« Klaus mumbled quietly, his head still resting on Diego’s shoulder. Of course, having his favorite dish for dinner wouldn't help him deal with what he had learned today and it wouldn't make anything better but still, Klaus seemed to appreciate the effort.

Grace left them after she had gathered what she needed from the basement with a hum on her lips. The two brothers sat in silence for a while before Klaus spoke again.

»Are you aware of the fat giant spider right over your head?«

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, for now, I have ONE more story planned to be next (about baby Klaus and his powers). So I am very much open for requests or suggestions. Just hit me up either in the comments or on my Tumblr <3


End file.
